News and notes from each week of NASCAR racing using a Las Vegas oddsmaking perspective

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Kevin Harvick looking for third Daytona win Saturday night

Kevin Harvick is 12/1 to win in wide open Daytona

Kevin Harvick and the No. 4 Budweiser Folds of Honor Chevrolet SS travel to Daytona International Speedway (DIS) this weekend to compete in the Coke Zero 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) race.

Salute… The No. 4 Budweiser Folds of Honor Chevrolet will don a special patriotic paint scheme for Saturday’s 400-mile event at DIS to reflect the special red, white and blue packaging featured on the iconic Budweiser bottles and cans this summer. Now through August 15, beer drinkers can enter a code contained inside specially marked packages of Budweiser on Budweiser.com/donate to trigger a $1 donation to Folds of Honor, accounting for up to $1 million combined with wholesaler contributions for a more than $3 million total donation to Folds of Honor in 2014. Through scholarships and other assistance, Folds of Honor gives back to the families of soldiers killed or disabled in action. Since first partnering with the Folds of Honor Foundation in 2010, Budweiser and its wholesalers have raised nearly $10 million for military families, accounting for thousands of scholarships across the country.

Chassis Info…The No. 4 team will utilize Chassis No. 834 in Sunday’s race. Harvick raced the car to a 13th-place finish in this year’s Daytona 500.

Daytona Stats… Harvick has 26 prior NSCS starts at DIS Speedway. He has won both the Daytona 500 (2007) and the Coke Zero 400 (2010). Harvick has also earned six top fives and 11 top 10s, and has an average start of 16.5 and average finish of 15.8.

Loop Data… Harvick owns a number of impressive marks in NASCAR’s Loop Data scoring system at DIS heading into this weekend’s event, including: first in fastest drivers late in a run (188.735 mph); sixth in green flag speed (189.515); seventh in fastest drivers late in a run (188.735 mph); and eighth in speed in traffic (189.405 mph).

A Look Back… In last year’s Coke Zero 400, Harvick started 26th and finished third.

Budweiser #SpeedTweets… Budweiser is tapping into race fans increasing affinity for social media by using Twitter to engage in a new and unprecedented way. The brewer’s latest effort, #SpeedTweets, is a Twitter-based weekly competition that will award 19 fans a trip to Charlotte, N.C., to race go-karts with Harvick. The contest runs the first 19 weeks of the 2014 NSCS schedule, with Budweiser’s official racing Twitter account, @BudweiserRacing, posting challenges throughout each race weekend. Participants (21 and older only) are required to register at Budweiser.com/SpeedTweets must follow @BudweiserRacing, and must reply to @BudweiserRacing with the hashtag #SpeedTweets in order for their answers to be considered. For information on contest rules and regulations, please visit http://speedtweets.com/legal.html.

Harvick on Racing at Daytona International Speedway

What is the biggest change you experience at Daytona International Speedway between the race in February and the event in July?“The track becomes a little bit slicker, especially with the increased temperatures. Plus, the asphalt ages just a bit from all of the other racing that takes place at this particular track. Usually it’s about 95 degrees with 90 percent humidity in July, so the slick track condition is the biggest change we deal with when racing at Daytona International Speedway in July compared to February.”

Do you utilize different strategies to account for the weather differences in the two Daytona races?“It used to be a lot different before they repaved the race track. You had to really worry about handling. But July is definitely the hottest time of the year that you could go and race in Daytona. I don’t think handling is as big of an issue once the track was repaved, so now it’s just a big chess game.”

2016 Rundown· Four wins, 17 top fives, 24 top 10s,· Led 1378 laps· Average Finish of 11.6Homestead-Miami Speedway Outlook:· One win, two top fives, four top 10s· Average finish of 21.091, 23rd-best· Average Running Position of 14.792, 13th-best· Driver Rating of 95.5, eighth-best· 1962 Laps in the Top 15 (66.8), eighth-most· 447 Quality Passes, 10th-most